After 7 months…

I have mixed feeling about where I am now. I probably improved quite a lot in the capacity to use the camera, compose pictures and think about stories. I feel much strongly that pictures must have a purpose. I feel I am much more conscious of what I am shooting and about the choices I make when composing the pictures. I sometime hear the voice of Paul of Homer when pushing the shutter button (“think about the frame!”, “why are you tilting the image?”) which is somehow scary!

But on the other side, being exposed to a previously unknown world of photography and to the great shots of my course colleagues makes me feel that - whatever progress I have made – it is ridiculously little compared what I still need to do.

The photography bookshelves are evidence of how many new things I discovered! From next to nothing to two full large bookshelves. Of course having a book does not mean to know it or to remember its content. I had my embarrassing moments (like, in the same conversation, telling to a friend that I had no idea of Nachtwey was… and then how much I had liked a big black book called “inferno”…). It was good to do have repeated chances to visit London, because photography bookshops in Roma are virtually non existent and have a very limited selection. Italy is certainly not London when it comes to photography, but I am making now a more conscious effort to discover places where to hang around, as there are a few hidden gems. I am yet to visit the gallery of Noor, recently discovered, and the Contrasto space in Milano, for example.

The lectures were really good, and I want to revisit them systematically (so I badly need the archive to work!). We looked at an impressive list of photographers. Some of them really made a strong impression on me. But when looking back at the list, I sometimes find names that sound new to me! I do not know if it is because they did not strike me or because I just was overloaded... As soon as archives will be on line, I plan to do “a photographer a day”: I should listen again to the lecture and make some additional research on the internet to look at more pictures.

I squeezed the Master in between a demanding work schedule. Being overworked did not help. When working 150% of my time, piling up a master on top is really a lot. The fact that I managed to complete all assignments and assessments on time, and that I was able to - more or less - keep the pace of the classes was a true sign of how much I enjoy the course and I am committed to this. Of course the price to pay for this is that I did not have enough time to absorb the teaching, to really spend the extra time after each class and on each assessment to go deeper in it. In some cases the travelling schedule made it impossible or me to access the tutorial which was a big loss. Lack of time and lot of travelling also means that I – as usual – take tons of pics in a place and I have next to zero time to look back at them and really think what to do with them. Actually one of my problems is that I am exposed to so many stories to the point that I have an embarrassment of the riches when it comes to choice.. but zero time to then work on any of them.

Of course I am now more conscious that I SHOULD tell stories, but in most cases the only “stories” I end up telling are dull stories of a development project, and of the methodology about it... Which is probably fine, given where I work, but not really exciting… But nevertheless I feel I made progress on this and started to influence some colleagues on how pictures and visual analysis could be used to improve our work and understanding.

Actually the master was one of the factors in my decision not to renew the contract with ActionAid (which will expire end of October). I know that, if I am really serious about it, I need of more time for photography outside work. And I also know that - loving my work so much - I would never had managed to free that time available if I continued with the contract. So I took this brave decision. Starting from November I will have to reinvent my life. Of course there is the risk that - having to look for shorter term jobs (consultancies, freelancing and the like) – I will end up with less time than before! But what I hope is that, by forcing myself to chose where to engage, I can devote more consciously time to photography, and maybe I can seek for engagements where photography has a more important part than it has now.

I feel that I should improve a lot on the technical side. I was lucky enough to be supported by a colleague in the communication department which accompanied me in photo walks and criticized my work. This was extremely useful, and really pushed me out of my comfort zone (=the “P” setting of the Nikon and my zoom lenses!). I tried out different camera settings, I started to work with different lenses and I am now working with foxed focal quite a lot, which I never did in the past. I bought myself a flash and next step is to try to play with it.

I wish there was a way to do more of this technical counselling within the course. I understand it is not easy to organize this when we are all over the places. But it would be good for example, to have a residential week of photography somewhere. It would be great to do this within the course… but if this is not possible, maybe the course should present alternative options for that where small groups could engage together in some external initiative.

I need to work on the technical side more, when I shoot (being more in control of how I chose to take that picture in terms of settings / lenses / light..) but also after, on my laptop. In a way I take so many pics that post production work really is not on my radar, and it should be. Despite being a bit of a computer geek, I did not invest enough time to be a serious user of software and to learn what is really the best way to process a picture. Now I play with some basic parameters, but a bit randomly really… Again, it would be good to tackle this in the course.

Probably a lot more to tell… but this is what comes to mind now…

Assessment 1. Written essay.

‘If your pics aren’t close enough
they’re not good enough’

If one reads this quote having the personal history of Robert Capa in mind, meaning and implications seems quite straightforward: you need to be where the action is, you need to be physically close, and you will get a good picture.
So, the first obvious approach is to challenge this dictum by investigating the relationship of “close physical proximity” and “good pictures”. The pictures of Paul Graham - broad landscapes, near absence of action, where only small, far away details suggest the presence of conflict - could be used to contrast this view: a distant viewpoint can also reveal a lot about conflict and lead to good pictures. But this essay will not focus on this angle only. The point of departure of this essay is to accept that by milling on this quote, further questions are unavoidable. What constitutes a “good” war picture? What does “close” really mean? Close to whom, close to what? In a time of changing warfare, where is the battleground, anyway, and where is war felt?
This essay will not focus so much on replying to these questions. It rather argues the importance to ask them. The very act of asking can result – as this essay will show - in different approaches to war photography, different viewpoints and aesthetics. All of these are very relevant in trying to capture the complexity of warfare and its ripple effects at the present day.


“good” = “close”?

A war picture - being originated in a context that is so loaded with meaning and ethical dilemmas - cannot be judged based on its aesthetic only. Actually the very debate on the legitimacy of aesteticizing suffering and conflict has been an underlying question for many years, and a fil-rouge in the influential criticism of Sontag [Sontag 1977, 2003]
Whatever the positioning on that debate, it is probably safe to say that judgement on the quality of “good” war photography transcends the mere aesthetics, and need to consider its value as testimony.
Testimony is related to the concept of proximity and closeness: it is about being there, physically. It is about being in a place where most people would not want to be, and to witness.
The value of this closeness is demonstrated, in the competitive photographic market, by the premium attached to it, which - however - also came bundled with risk. “It is left to the people on the ground to decide what is worth the risk and what is not. I leave it to your imagination what t happens is you say to your boss than an assignment is too risky, and your competitor gets the picture (Mathias Eick, war correspondent, quoted in Moeller, 1999: 19)

But - as demonstrated by Graham - there is a value in breaking this unwritten rule of the primacy of closeness: understanding war sometimes requires a broader perspective, and distance. Stepping back to look at the context, or at the details at the margin of action, can actually give new perspectives to war.
Norfolk raised the bar even further by distancing himself also in time, when taking pictures in the land of forgotten conflicts, such as Armenia or Namibia. Again, distance adds meaning: “What these photographs tell us is that even infamy is subject to entropic decay. Even large and terrible crimes are eventually forgotten […]. This is hard to bear. We do no want to live in a world where crime escapes punishment […] [Ignatieff in Norfolk 1998: no page]


How close a photographer will want to be?

There are questions about the legitimacy of being so close to suffering and portraying it, and different photographers will have a different take to it. This is where physical closeness and emotional closeness start to interplay. There is the gung-ho, adrenaline pumping desire of proximity of the stereotype war photographer, but there are also forms of proximity that are declaredly accompanied by detachment, or by the deep desire to be elsewhere. So, physical proximity interplays in different ways with the emotions and the standing of the photographer. This has certainly a role in the way a picture is composed, and in its purpose. Nachtwey affirmed “Every minute I was there, I wanted to flee. I did not want to see this” [WarPhotographer 2001. He then grounded his decision to stay in the value of testimony.

Linked to any judgement of the opportunity of closeness there is then the decision as to where to position oneself in a war. Close to whom? Taking sides (like Capa in the Spanish war or Griffith in Vietnam)? Attempting to be neutral and see the different facets of conflict? Or simply occupying whatever space is on offer, as it is increasingly happening to “embedded journalists”?
At a time of changing warfare, access as been a casualty and even neutral actors such as journalists or humanitarian workers now find it next to impossible to operate. The very fact of reclaiming a choice of physical proximity becomes a valiant act. “We chose to work unembedded so that we might provide another perspective on this war. And I mean that literally: we sought out a specific physical perspective — not a specific political perspective — outside the American bases and armoured vehicles” [Thorne Anderson in: Komp 2006]


Close to whom? People… emotions…

It would not give justice to Capa to affirm that, for him, closeness was only about physical closeness to action and battle. His pictures of the Spanish Civil war do clearly convey that he was taking sides, that he had empathy, that the people in the pictures and their life really mattered for him.

When it comes to emotional closeness, there are different perspectives: Delahaye affirmed that he can only restore the suffering through detachment [Sullivan 2003] and then caused a stir by emphasizing the aesthetic qualities of his picture of dead Taleban, transformed into art gallery work.
Pellegrin also attempts to operate at a level beyond the “documentary” only, but he does so to bring in, strongly, emotions. Whilst the memorable pictures of Capa of the D-Day where “slightly out of focus” for technical issues, the pictures of Pellegrin are explicitly built in conditions of marginal light, they are blurred to give a sense of not finished which shall lure the viewer closer to them


How close can a viewer be?

If ethics are considered in determining was a good war photograph is, then many would agree that a good picture should bring the viewers close to the war and the suffering, overcoming their “compassion fatigue” [Moeller 1999]. Nachtwey, as many others, had argued that a powerful picture should put people in touch with war, should help people to see what the war does. A picture should “protest, and by the strength of that protest to make others protest” [Natchway 1985]. So, the idea of closeness can be stretched to apply, somehow, also to the viewer.
But there are critics of this attempts to bring suffering close to the people. Sontag affirms that “no one has the right to experience the suffering of others at a distance” [Sontag 2003: 105]. And she makes clear that even good intentions can be defeated as “in a world in which photography is brilliantly at the service of consumerist manipulations, no effect of a photograph of a doleful scene can be taken for granted [ibidem: 71]


Insiders: too close for comfort?

An outsider can see - maybe feel - but never really experience war as these forcefully involved in it do. However close, ultimately s/he will deploy his superior power and stance when capturing an image.
Nowadays images of war are increasingly captured not only by professional outsiders, but also by insiders: those who plan the war, those who fight it, those who experience it. This had happened in the past, but the widespread availability of cameras and channels or dissemination is giving a new dimension to the perspective of insiders. Their (often forced) closeness constitutes a unique view point. The identity of the insider (his/her role, loyalties, power…) will define to a large extent what it is possible - or not possible - to convey. It will also model the meaning that viewers will attribute to these pictures.

The pictures of Ziyah Gafic, for example, tell us about the life of people during the Bosnia war. Insider’s closeness is a fundamental ingredient in creating the intimacy of its work: often the people portrayed are his own relatives and acquaintances.

At the other side of the spectrum there are the pictures taken by the combatants, which sometimes trickle out on web and media. Rather than the anesthetized views of the battle proposed by official war photography, they display the extremely personal and crude perceptions of war as seen by he troops. The site (now closed) www.nowthatsfuckedup.com - which offered porn pictures to the troops in Iraq in exchange for their own picture of combat - was an extraordinary testimony, maybe too close for comfort. The same crude and cruel power deployed by the troops in combat also spilled over into their photography. How would ethical concerns play when judging such photography, if they were beautiful? Could they ever be”good” when they represent hatred and “fucked up” perceptions?
In this case, however, the close-ups of disembodied people, the loveless porn scenes in the barracks were definitely not good pictures. Ricuperati [2006] points out that they lacked a punctum as well as the studium. They lacked intimacy; they portrayed closeness without empathy, anesthetized feelings. He notices that single images have no real visual power per se: they portrait death as ordinary and even boring. It is the sequencing of such pictures, together with the comments of authors and readers, which build up a horrendous picture of war, deprived, as they are, of a “moral justification” and being too close to death and alienation.


Where is the battleground, anyway?

What is the theatre of war photography? Is it the battleground? And where is the battleground, anyway? Starting with the first aerial bombings, and increasingly now, war action can happen in a place and then hit people far away. Norfolk had shown this efficiently by photographing the computer mainframes in military complexes. If a computer can be the battleground, clearly the idea of proximity, in current warfare, will need to be revised.

When searching for closeness, is the battlefield really the centrepoint? Most people “die from war rather than in battle”. It is the civilian population that pays the price of war [Slim 2008:91]. Casualties are found in peripheral areas. People are hit by straying missiles. People flee their land. People lose their support nets. People die of poverty, of famine, of illness ultimately derived from conflicts and war. So, being really close to these affected by war might mean to stir away from the glamorous centre of action, or stay behind when the media circus leave a place.
The “battles” happening in such places are often battles for survival, an attempt to put together the resemblance of normal life. Being close and responsive to these situations might mean to refuse, as Salgado, to portrait people as victims without dignity [Levi Strauss 2007]. It can also mean to capture glimpses of their happiness and “normal life”, reclaimed against all odds – as Lowe in Bosnia.


Conclusions

“If your pictures aren’t close enough they’re not good enough’ proved to be a sentence that could be read in many different ways. Playing with its meaning, this essay argued that different interpretations of closeness and of the concept of “location” of war can lead to many different, somewhat contrasting, perspectives on war photography.

In addition, closeness should not only be judged by the positioning of the photographer. The sense of closeness created in the viewer is equally important in judging the merit of a war photography.
I would discard the idea than only close proximity to action achieves good pictures. I rather believe that it is only by cumulating different angles and interpretations of “closeness” than war and changing warfare can be represented, and that their effects can be brought close to distant - and often too detached - viewers.


References

BLDGBLOG (2006), “War/Photography: An Interview with Simon Norfolk” in BLDGBLOG, http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/warphotography-interview-with-simon.html. Accessed 09/07/08.

Bonaventura, P. (2003). “Paul Graham: The troubles” in: CIRCA Online. Available at: http://www.recirca.com/articles/paulgraham.shtml. Accessed 09/07/08.

Komp, C, (2006). “Witness to war. Unembedded photojournalism in Iraq” in Clamor. Available at: http://clamormagazine.org/issues/36/media.php. Accessed 09/07/08.

Levi Strauss (2007). Politica della fotografia. Postmedia, Milano.

Lowe, P. (2005). Bosnians. Saqi books, London.

Magnum website (no date). Paolo Pellegrin Portfolio on Magnum Site. Quote available at http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R13CHLN&nm=Paolo%20Pellegrin. Accessed 09/07/08.

Moeller, S.D (1999). Compassion Fatigue. Routledge, New York and London.

Nachtwey, J (1985). Why Photograph War?. Available at: http://www.war-photographer.com/en/wp_Pressbook_E.pdf. Accessed 09/07/08

Norfolk, S (1998). For most of it I have no words. Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport.

Pellegrin, P (2007). Video-interview available at: http://dailymotion.alice.it/Theblogtvcityzen/video/x24xqx_intervista-al-fotoreporter-paolo-pe. Accessed 09/07/08. (translation from Italian by the author)

Ricuperati (2006). Fucked up. BUR, Milano

War Photographer (2001) . Directed by Christian Frei. Switzerland. Christian Frei Filmproductions.

Slim, H (2008). Killing Civilians: Method, Madness, and Morality in War. Columbia Univ. Press, New York.

Sontag, S. (1977). On Photography. Penguin, London. Reprint Penguin Classics 2002.

Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the Pain of Others. Pengiun, London.

Sullivan, B. (2003). “The real thing: Photograper Luc Delahaye” in: Artnet. Available at: http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/sullivan/sullivan4-10-03.asp. Accessed 09/07/08.


List of Pictures

1: Robert Capa – Ohama beach – 6 June 1944
Whelan, R (2001). Robert Capa. La Collezione Completa. Phaidon, London.

2: Paul Graham – Union Jack flag in tree, County Tyrone, 1985
Graham, P (no date). “Troubled land” in Paul Graham Archive. Available at: http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/images/troubledland/TL-01.jpg. Accessed 09/07/08.

3: Luc Delahaye – Dead Taleban
Sullivan, B. (2003). “The real thing: Photographer Luc Delahaye” in: Artnet. Available at: http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/sullivan/sullivan4-10-03.asp. Accessed 09/07/08.

4: Paolo Pellegrin. Civilians fleeing Basra dusing US-led invasion.
Pellegrin, P (2007). As I was dying. Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport. p 12.

5. James Nachtwey. Bosnia, 1993 - Wounded soldier.
Nachtwey, J. (1999). Inferno. Phaidon, New York. Reprinted 2006. p 200.

6: A picture from the website www.nowthatsfuckedup.com
Ricuperati (2006). Fucked up. BUR, Milano. P. 100.

7: Simon Norfolk (no date), “Modelling Physics inside and exploding nuclear warhead.
Norfolk, S (no date). “The supercomputers: ‘I am sorry Dave, I am afraid I cannot do that’” in :Et in Arcadia Ego”. Available at: http://www.simonnorfolk.com/ Accessed 09/07/08

Assessment 1: the electoral campaign of Roberto Tavani

Obama style: door to door.
The electoral campaign of Roberto Tavani.
Municipio XVII Roma

This photographic essay document the electoral campaign of Roberto Tavani,
It was an original campaign, run on a shoestring, pushed by a vision that politics should be closer to the citizens rather than to political parties logics.

Background to the Election.
The Town and Municipal election held in April 2008 came as a surprise. The national government fell in January 2008. The incumbent major of Roma, Walter Veltroni - head of the newly formed Partito Democratico (centre-left) - left his post to run as Prime Minister. Quite unexpectedly, citizens of Roma were summoned to vote for the town administration. Equally unexpectedly Roberto Tavani, a town councillor (Environment, Sport, Culture) in Municipio XVII for Democratic Party had to step down from his role as councillor and run his electoral campaign side by side with his institutional committments.

Municipio XVII
Municipio XVII is located north of the Vatican. It has different souls: close to St Peter is the bourgeois Prati, moving further north there are more popular, middle/working class neighbourhoods. The campaign of Tavani mostly happened in these popular parts, by the local markets, the playgrounds. This is where Rome becomes an interesting mix: a bit of a village – people rooted in the area, talking lively in their strong accent; a bit of a city – large buildings with the imperial allure of fascist social housing.

The campaign
I stumbled in Roberto Tavani by chance. I was lucky because he run his campaign very differently from many. First of all, the “municipio” is the only government body for which electors can still vote a candidate of choice: at all the other levels people vote “blocked” lists of candidates appointed by the parties. So, at this level, personality mattered
Another difference is that many people would rely on billboards, leaflets and basically on lot of money to run their campaign, so the choice of Roberto Tavani to make a low cost campaign and base it on face to face interaction with people was an interesting one. It was a campaign on the road, and I had walked for hours following him in action.
Finally, Roberto Tavani is a bit of an outsider in the Partito Democratico. He feels that politics should change. He believes more in dialogue with citizens than being part of political games. So his campaign only rarely overlapped with what was organized by the party: he preferred to be in the streets rather than in the party offices or in more institutionalized electoral venues and stalls.
Roberto was helped by Lorenza, which worked as a secretary and PR and also accompanied him to talk to people. A couple of boys also volunteered to dispatch door to door electoral material with their scooters, to the supporters requiring it.
Finally, his former responsibilities as town councillor (Culture, Environment, Sport) meant that his campaign revolved around art galleries, theatres, open spaces, gardens: a beautiful backdrop capturing many facets of this part of Roma.

How did the election go?
The democratic party won the election in the Municipio and Roberto Tavani received the highest number of votes in the municipio (over 700 votes, meaning, 1/60 of the voters wrote his name on the ballot out of a choice of 300 candidates). He is again councillor. The democratic party did not equally well in broader Roma, and the candidate of the Right, Gianni Alemanno, won the elections.

About the multimedia project.
The multimedia project presents a different set of pictures from the portfolio. Pictures which would not work in a portfolio became essential here to accompany the narrative of the campaign by Roberto Tavani. The occasion in which the audio clip were recorded was a visit after the elections, when he looked back at the campaign as I gave him the pictures I took. The song “This is not America” was proposed as a soundtrack by Roberto, not only because he likes it. It is also a cheeky remark about the admiration for a dreamlike Kennedy America by the leadership of the Democratic party. The title "Like Obama" came from a joking comment Roberto made while walking around the town.

Quick (long due) update.

Long time with no updates.
Amongst other travelling, I spent 20 days in north-eastern Kenya, in a remote district inhabited by Somali Pastoralists. I took many many pictures, and to my frustration I see that I did not yet overcame my Africa problem: i.e. I keep on taking pictures that I find somehow cliché and superficial. A friend of mine with whom I shared my frustration said that it is because I am not "in" the photo as in other circumstances, and this might be true...

Anyway, a nice trip, but 20 days with very little electricity (just enough to recharge the batteries of the camera) and next to zero connection (still it is incredible that mobile internet connection can already reach some of the places i visited!) meant a SCARY backlog of work... Couple this with having to move my room and meet the deadline of the course and you will see why I did not post much!
Anyway... Essay 1 has been sent yesterday. I am finishing now the picture essay, which will be the one of Elections in Roma. I took many pics since, but none of this work was really thought as a piece. I will then be able to spend time working on the pictures of North Eastern Kenya. I will need to assmble them for work, to show what methodology we used there through pics, and I might share the outcome with you.
Hopefully I will then be able to play with my new toy, the SB600 flash that just arrived. I have next to zero knowledge of working with flash, so I will do some experimenting. And I am looking forward to get a little bit of time to go back to the wimba archive and revise the lectures we had done so far. Some of the photographers really stuck in my mind, other didn't.. so I want to revise them all.
As they say, a photographer a day...

Bangladesh: a B movie in Golachipa

Movies are immensely popular in Bangladesh. The big blockbusters are still the Bollywood movies, but there are also locally produced movies. If you happen to be in a remote city you might catch up with the B movies of Bangladesh: dreadful quality, shown in cinemas with an incredible charme but also incredibly hot... Not for the faint of heart!

Bangladesh: Star Circles in Faridpur, Jessore, Sylhet

I spent most of my time in the field talking with the participants of “Star circles” around Bangladesh (in Faridpur, Jessore – west Bangladesh; and in Sylhet – North). Here are a few snapshopts of the participants and of the settings.

Bangladesh: Stone Cave at Jaflong

An interesting feature of Bangladesh is lack of stone. By every construction site you will find workers hammering into pieces bricks to make "gravel": real gravel is just too expensive. Also the flat stone for grinding spices that every household has is an expensive item. So when you get to see stone in Bangladesh is an event. These pictures are taken at the border with India (and you can even spot some border police amist the crowd): here the flat fields of bangladesh abruptly hit the hills of Assam. This is where stone gets collected, processed and sent all over the country. As usual I only had minimal time to take pics...